As Bhogi-smog surrounds the city, flights cancelled or delayed in Chennai Airport

Jan 14, 2019

As many as 20 flights, both domestic and international, have been rescheduled or cancelled by Chennai Airport, owing to the Bhogi festival and the smoke emitted from the burning of old wares to uphold the tradition.

Scheduled flight times were altered in anticipation of heavy fog on Monday. The Chennai Airport announced the change in flight timings on its Twitter handle on Sunday night.

“Passengers may kindly take note of the rescheduled flights from MAA due to expected fog on 14.01.2019,” according to one tweet.

Passengers may kindly take note of the rescheduled flights from MAA due to expected fog on 14.01.2019:

AirArabia G9471/472,Sharjah- Chennai-Sharjah rescheduled time of arrival in Chennai is 0930hrs and departure to Sharjah @ 1010hrs.Passengers may plan [email protected]_Official

— Chennai(MAA) Airport (@aaichnairport) January 13, 2019

While five international flights to Sharjah, Singapore, Colombo, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai were delayed, 15 domestic flights to destinations, including Port Blair, Mumbai, Bengaluru and New Delhi were rescheduled to a later time.

Two Jet Airways flights — one from Chennai to Bengaluru (9W780) and one from Chennai to Mumbai (9W466) — were cancelled and arrangements were made to accommodate passengers on later flights.

Similarly the arrivals of many flights into Chennai were also delayed due to the anticipated fog in the city because of Bhogi. AirArabia’s flight from Sharjah to Chennai (G9471), which was scheduled to touch down in the wee hours of Monday, was rescheduled to arrive at 9.30 am.

In an appeal, the Tamil Nadu government had asked people not to burn anything in celebration of Bhogi this year. “In the olden days people burnt wooden logs and cow-dung cakes to protect themselves from the biting cold of the winter. But as days went by, people started burning old clothes and other wastes,” read the appeal. Requesting people to recycle the wastes and dispose of things that are non-recyclable, the appeal stated that this practice of burning materials could cause damage to health.